


The E Brigade

by soundofez



Category: Dragon Quest IX
Genre: Ficlet Collection, Humor, a heck of a lot of original characters okay, heck this might as well be an original work, so many original characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-07 17:05:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soundofez/pseuds/soundofez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enoch was only a novice Celestrian. He never dreamed of falling out of the sky. He never thought he would lose his halo and his wings. He certainly never expected to have to team up with three half-mad humans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Good Turn

**Author's Note:**

> Originally [Import: DQIX Quest Log](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7488389/1/Import-DQIX-Quest-Log) on FFN. Now being rewritten.

 

**  
Q001: One Good Turn**

_You've been asked by a girl called Questelle in Angel Falls to go and find a Tangleweb. Try investigating the big spider's web on the other side of the river just outside the village. Keep your eyes peeled for something twinkly..._

* * *

The girl—he thinks her name might be Estelle—had told him that _yes_ , there was a giant spider's web just across the river, and _yes_ , it was deserted, and _no_ , he would not have to worry about a giant spider because the thing was  _deserted_ , and would he pleaseplease _please_  answer all her prayers and get a tangleweb for her? And of course he'd consented, thinking that even if he'd lost his wings and his halo and wasn't technically a Celestrian anymore, he was  _still_  Angel Falls' guardian. Besides, he reasoned to himself, the monsters in the area were easy enough to defeat or outrun or chase away.

Except that the spider's web is  _not_  as deserted as he was told it was and he certainly did  _not_  expect to have to fight another giant monster so soon after the one in the Hexagon. He isn't stupid— he's  _trying_ to run. The enormous spider is slow enough that he should easily be able to flee: the problem is that in the process of trying to retrieve tanglewebs he had ended up accidentally using a few on himself, and the web under his feet is sticking to his sandals, delaying him just enough that it's an issue.

He's maybe five feet from the edge of the web when the spider's shadow finally falls on him. He cringes and turns to face the monster, bracing himself as well as he can against the quivering web. He's just managed to shakily raise his sword when he hears a faint twang and hiss, followed immediately by a shaft of wood protruding from one eye of the spider. It pulls away, enraged by the pain but also completely confused, so he takes the opportunity to scramble the remaining distance off the web backwards, aided by pushy hands that tug him viciously to safe ground, though he loses his sword in the process. Once on solid ground, he takes off for the trees without a second glance.

A pale girl with green hair pulled up in a ponytail slides down the nearest tree trunk and bounds past him, bow and arrow raised. "Out the way, mate, we'll be done in a mo'!" He spins around, bewildered, but she only shouts, "Hey, save me some of the experience, won't you?" followed by an inarticular name that sounds something like 'Shark,' of all things.

'Shark' shouts back incomprehensibly just as another two girls come running over. One of them looks like a priest; the other is plainly a thief.

Well, he's gotten what he'd come for, and the odd group seems to be holding up just fine without him. He reaches for his sword anyway, but then remembers that he's lost it and lets out a displeased sigh. It really doesn't seem right leaving before the battle is done, but it feels downright _unsafe_ to keep running around without a weapon, so he turns around and heads back toward Angel Falls. At least the monsters run away from him, so as long as he makes himself known they'll keep out of his way.

* * *

"Oh, thank you thank you  _thank_  you!" Questelle cries, hopping up and down on the spot. He waves her off tiredly (though not before she manages to give him a sleeping hibiscus) and vaguely wonders why she hasn't offered any Benevolessence before remembering that the Fyggs have bloomed and that the great tree of Yggdrasil doesn't need any more spirit of gratitude and that as a not-quite-Celestrian he (probably) can't even _see_  it anyways.

"Hey, you! Spider guy!"

He turns automatically at the mention of spiders. Given his recent misadventure, he's a little jumpy at the mention of them.

"It  _is_ you! Hey, Ezzer, I found him!" a tall, roguish girl shouts delightedly.

Her green-haired companion appears as though she had Zoomed there, a girl with short red curls at her heels. "Really? Excellent! How are you?"

"Well, he's walking and talking, so I'm gonna say that he's alright," the red-head comments dryly.

"Sorry about the spider!" a smaller girl he hadn't noticed chirps from by the first girl.

"Yeah, we were in the grotto down below when it came along and chased us up," the first girl adds.

"Bit off a bit more than we could chew with that one," the green-haired girl ("Ezzer", he guesses) laughs.

"We were perfectly fine," red-head dismisses.

"Liar."

"Anyway, we decided to wing it before it could bite our heads off," the first girl, the tallest one, continues.

"Except that when we got out, you were there," the little one frowns, "and then you disappeared while we were fighting, so Ezra—" she indicates the pale, green-haired girl— "was worried you'd gotten yourself attacked by some other escaped grotto monster or something. I'm Nat, by the way."

"I— er—" he stammers, somewhat bewildered.

"I'm Rob," the rogue offers with a smirk. "Fittingly enough, seeing as I'm a thief. The redhead's Lock." She sticks out her hand. "You?"

He hesitates for a moment, and then offers his hand, a shy smile, and his name.

* * *

_You found a tangleweb for Questelle in Angel Falls, and she gave you a sleeping hibiscus in return. She told you to look for twinkly spots, as they show there's an item in that location. You can do this quest as many times as you like._

* * *

 He hesitates for a moment before quietly admitting, "Enoch," and, since he's seen mortals shake hands, awkwardly extends his own.

Rob grabs his hand enthusiastically. "No kidding? We heard about you!"

"Saved Miss Patty from the Hexagoon, didn't you?" Nat asks eagerly. Enoch nods mutely.

"Oh, by the way, we fetched your sword, in case you wanted it," Ezra says meekly, shoving her hand into Lock's bag, to the red-head's protests.

Enoch accepts his weapon gratefully. "Thanks," he mutters, flushing a bit.

"You headed to Stornway?" Rob asks. "We could help you there, if you like."

"N-no thanks," he replies, shaking his head. "I have... other plans."

"Suit yourself," Lock shrugs, and marches away.

"Sorry about her," Ezra apologizes, hurrying off after her friend.

"She is so whipped," Rob stage-whispers, rolling her eyes.

"Rob! Be nice!" Nat scolds as the thief saunters away, and then turns to him. "Ah, Enoch, right? We're wandering, and I guess you are, too, so maybe we'll see each other around some time?" she asks him.

"Yeah... maybe," he mumbles. Nat beams.

"See you around, then!" she calls as she runs off.

In a moment they're out of sight, and he's left staring at the sword Ezra returned to him, wondering what just happened.


	2. Pleased as Punch

**Q002: Pleased as Punch**

_A girl named Ricki in the church in Stornway wants you to egg her on with an air punch._

* * *

He never thought he'd have to go in for a Confession in a mortal church again, but here he is standing before Stornway's. It's larger than Angel Falls', which surprises him, though it really shouldn't, considering how much **bigger** Stornway is than Angel Falls. 

He walks in to see a gaggle of girls cluttering the aisle, three in total surrounding a fourth. With a dull jolt, he recognizes the three as most of the group from Angel Falls. The fourth seems despondent.

They turn to look at him when he walks in, disturbed by the creaking of the rather large church doors. (Who is he kidding? Everything in this city is a size or _ten_ up from everything in his own town.) The three from before recognize him, and the little one (he can't remember her name) is waves to him.

"Hello, Enoch!" she chirps. "I guess we're meeting sooner than we thought. Fancy seeing you here!"

"Er." His mind has come to a blank, completely caught off guard. The caustic redhead scoffs and turns back to the fourth girl. He doesn't much like the way the unknown girl is eying him as the two bicker. "Wasn't there another one of you?" he finally asks.

Redhead goes stiff, turns away from Unfamiliar, and stalks past him out the door. She's practically projecting hostility in waves, and Enoch pivots to watch her leave, because for some reason he thinks she might attack him. Little and Thief watch her go in silence. He turns back around to find Unfamiliar still giving him that look that he doesn't like. She breaks the silence first.

"You know, I want to pray to the Almighty, but I'm really not in the _mood_ ," she says. Her inflection makes Enoch feel like he's missing something, which unsettles him even more. "D'you think you could give me a hand with that?"

The idea that she needs to get in the " _mood_ " to pray throws him off, because Celestrians as beings devoted to the Almighty simply don't need much (if any) prompting: but then he remembers the little tricks that Apus Major would teach mischievous toddler Celestrians, and so he punches the air enthusiastically and tells her, "You can do it!"

It's awkward almost immediately, and he grins painfully to cover for it, because he sounded like he was talking to a kid, and Unfamiliar is definitely not a child. Then Thief bursts out cackling and asks him, "Wow, what was _that_?"

* * *

_After you egged on Ricki in Stornway with an air punch, she taught you the 'Pirouette' party trick. You can assign your party tricks from the Misc. menu, and perform them by holding down the B Button and using the +Control Pad._

* * *

Her name is Rob, she reminds him, and the little one is Nat, and Redhead is Lock, and Unfamiliar is Ricki but who cares about that because she's a local dancer and (Rob tells him in undertones) kind of a slut (Nat hears and smacks Rob on the arm and tells her _Be nice!_ ), and Absent (who has actually left their party) is Ezra and was Lock's best friend, but they had a falling out, so Ezra is looking for a party to join over at the Quester's Rest and they're all sort of worried for her (even Lock, though she's too busy sulking to admit it) and would Enoch perhaps be able to have her along? She's a competent archer, they promise.

Stella, meddlesome fairy that she is, asks slyly if he's planning on collecting a harem ( _You dog!_ ), to which he reacts with horror, and after a bit of confusion with Rob and Nat that he passes off as a mix-up between Ricki and Ezra as the subject of their request he finds himself stuck with the promise to team up with a mortal.

_Whoops._


	3. We Like to Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ricki in the church in Stornway has asked you to egg her on with another party trick.

 

**Q003: We Like to Party**

_Ricki in the church in Stornway has asked you to egg her on with another party trick._

* * *

He's managed to tuck himself in the bushes behind Stornway's notice board, _away_ from the festivities and the **attention** of the city carnival, thank you very much. Ezra, with another minstrel she ran into at the Quester's Rest, is in the thick of it, dancing and singing like it's her job.

Which, he realizes, it is.

He's a terrible minstrel, he decides, and will have to change his vocation as soon as he can, _if_ he can. Not that he hates helping people— quite the opposite, considering his Celestrian background— but the dancing-around-cheering-people part is completely new to him. It makes him uncomfortable; he never did like attention, and attention was hard-gained when you were previously **invisible**.

"Hello again!"

It's the girl from the church peering around the notice board with a shy smile playing around her lips. He shifts uncomfortably, because the look in her eyes is still making him uncomfortable, but he answers anyway, if a little glumly. "Hello."

She takes his response as an invitation to plop onto the grass next to him. "You okay?" she asks after a short pause, a little too loudly.

"Just... thinking," he replies slowly, because he's thinking of the Observatory, and she won't understand because she's only ever been mortal.

"Thinking?"

"Of home," he allows.

"Home? Where do you live?"

A small smile plays around his lips as he says, wryly, " _In the sky._ "

"Really?" she whispers, and with a jolt Enoch realizes that she is far too close for comfort. Still, he hesitates, trying to decide whether retreating is rude and, when she leans even closer, further decides that rudeness can be forgiven in the face of rudeness.

Thankfully, he hears Ezra calling for him, and he stands up to go. "That's my friend, I should—" he starts, and then yelps when the girl yanks on his collar and **kisses him** just as Ezra walks through the bushes.

She turns around immediately and walks away, which confuses Enoch again, but the girl kissing him is **really demanding** and again he concludes that he should abscond as soon as he can. This time he succeeds, and loses himself in the crowd of festivities the moment he scrabbles out of the bushes. He is wondering if he should find Ezra and figure out what she wanted when he runs into her minstrel friend.

"Hey, Enoch! Ezra was looking for you, have you seen her or..." she trails off, staring behind him.

He turns and sees Ezra through a gap in the crowd participating in an archery contest. Her face is drawn and focused in a manner that Enoch has never seen before. She's almost...

"Why is she so upset?" the minstrel asks behind him. He turns back and shrugs, because he honestly doesn't know, but then it occurs to him to ask, "Hey, is it normal to kiss someone out of the blue?"

She stares at him, her face suddenly lighting. "Oh! Do you mean she...?"

"I... yes?" he tries.

"And you— oh. You rejected her?"

"Well— she didn't really ask? She just sort of kissed me when I tried to go, because I heard Ezra calling. And then Ezra found me right when she did," he said uncertainly, because he doesn't think they're talking about quite the same thing.

"Wait, what," she commands, her voice flat. "Hold on, go back— who is _she_?"

"The church girl," he explains.

"And she— ohh." Her head seems to go through a number of thoughts, each bringing a revelation or two. "Okay. Wow, I'm sorry, that's just not cool. Hey, meet you at the church later, I'll bring Ezzer and we can just go."

"What?"

" _Just get in there and pray._ "

* * *

  _You gave Ricki just what she wanted: four party tricks in a row. In return, she taught you the 'Pray' party trick. Don't forget: you can assign four party tricks to the down direction of the +Control Pad and unleash them all at once!_  


* * *

"He wasn't actually kissing Ricki," Emily tells Ezra in between a round of the archery contest.

Ezra raises a brow in disbelief as she takes a swig of fresh water.

"Really," Emily insists. "Ricki kissed him. He didn't get it. He's not interested in her, I promise."

"Didn't think he was," Ezra mutters, but she still looks too severe for Emily to believe that she is completely unaffected, so she waits without pressing.

Ezra sighs. "It bothers me that he just... took the kiss. Did it even mean anything?"

"You know he's not from around here," Emily reminds her. "Maybe it's not such a big deal where he's from. He asked me if it was normal to just kiss someone out of the blue." She pauses. "I never really answered that."

Ezra pulls a face and stands up to finish the contest.


	4. Pick Me Up a Panacea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill, a scholar from Stornway, wants you to make him some Panacea. Apparently you can make it using alchemy.

**Q004: Pick Me Up a Panacea**

_Bill, a scholar from Stornway, wants you to make him some Panacea. Apparently you can make it using alchemy._

* * *

Krak Pot has forgotten a lot.

He is poshly friendly, of course, if perhaps more than a little mad, but he is of the opinion that sitting about gathering dust in an attic would do that to most. Curiously, he remembers the precise number of existing alchemical recipes, but not the details of any but the most common medicines and accessories.

The panacea does not fall under that category, but _you_ try telling that to impatient humans with no respect for precious artifacts.

"What do you _mean_ you don't remember?" Rob demands for the umpteenth time.

"Calm down, Rob," little Nat soothes from her seat on a table, flipping a page in her book. (They are in the lounge room of the Quester's Rest, waiting for a room to open for the night. They had been waiting in the bar when they ran into a snobby alchemist....)

"I will not _calm down_ ," Rob growls indignantly. "And what the hell are you two reading _books_ for at a time like this?!"

"Let him wait a bit," Lock grumbles from her seat beside a shelf, absorbed in her own book. "He wasn't convinced we'd be able to manage it at all, was he? Even though he _**needs** a bloody panacea_."

"You still haven't explained why you're all over the place **reading** , though," Rob points out.

"Alchemic books," Nat offers. "Oh, look, I found it. We need special medicine, superior medicine, and a moonwort bulb." She looks up with a slightly pained expression. "Have we _got_ those?"

"Moonwort is common, we can get one from the store if we don't already have one," Lock tells her. "The other two, though... do you know how to make those?"

The last question is directed at Krak Pot, who sniffs as much as a pot is able. "Of course I do. You need two strong medicines to make special medicine and a medicinal herb and a strong medicine for a superior medicine."

"So we'd need strong medicine too?" Nat queries politely.

"Yes. I presume you know how to make those, at least?"

"Two medicinal herbs per strong medicine," a new voice puts in.

The girls all turn to the door to gawk at the speaker. Lock resolves her stare into a glare and turns back to her book, her mouth twisting. She flips a page loudly to avoid having to listen to Enoch explain that he studied alchemy, and also to pretend as though she hasn't seen Ezra poke her head into the room.

It's useless, though: Rob and Nat call to Ezra in delight, and spend the next several minutes catching up while Lock does her level best to ignore them. Eventually, fed up with the lot of them, she slinks out of the room just as Krak Pot announces irritably, "Are you lot going to cook up a panacea or _not_?"

* * *

_You used a special medicine, superior medicine, and a moonwort bulb to make some panacea for Bill in Stornway. He gave you a Gleeban guinea in return, and shared some recipe tips with you._

* * *

"I don't think Krak Pot likes you very much, Rob," Nat reproaches as their little group exits the Quester's Rest in the morning, leaving a spluttering alchemist behind them.


End file.
